Flock Safety's AI Search Tool for Police Exposed
Original: This Is Flock’s AI Search Tool for Cops
Why This Matters
Flock's unauditable AI surveillance infrastructure is now central to dozens of police-stalking cases nationwide.
WIRED reconstructed Flock Safety's AI-powered police surveillance tool from browser code. The system allows officers to draw a geographic zone and run continuous automated searches across cameras for anyone matching a written description, raising serious civil liberties concerns.
WIRED analyzed the client-side code of Flock Safety's latest law enforcement search platform and built a functional mockup of its interface. The tool enables officers to define a geographic area and deploy an AI-powered watchlist that continuously scans cameras within that zone for individuals matching a text description.
The investigation comes amid growing controversy: police departments have canceled Flock contracts, city councils have reversed camera approvals, and two members of Congress wrote to CEO Garrett Langley following reports that a Texas deputy searched more than 83,000 cameras to track a woman who had an abortion. Illinois also found Flock had improperly provided state camera data to federal immigration agents.
In August, Flock announced reforms including shorter default data retention, mandatory case codes for searches, and automated audit systems. However, WIRED found that critical enforcement logic runs server-side and cannot be independently verified. Experts note that Flock's guardrails may log and deter abuse but cannot prevent it.
Flock's system screens officer search descriptions against sensitive categories including race and religion. Notably, 'political, social, and cultural expression' is the only sensitive category that does not halt a search—only slows it. Tom Bowman of the Center for Democracy and Technology called this the area 'courts have guarded most closely' under the First Amendment.
Flock warns officers that AI results may be inaccurate and places responsibility for errors on the officer, while no external party can audit the system's error rate.